Experts detail the legality of vaccine mandates, and other steps that can be taken.




Yes, your employer can require you to get vaccinated 

Health

Experts detail the legality of vaccine mandates, and other steps that can be taken.



Yes, your employer can require you to get vaccinated 


Covid 19 has been with us for the past 18 months and it's not going away anytime soon. And now employers have to face some difficult choices when it comes to getting people back into the workplace. Whether or not to mandate vaccines or not, mandate vaccines is legal for employers to require that the employees that vaccinated before coming back to work or the condition of employment or if you don't want to get vaccinated, then they have to be subject to constant testing to ensure that they're not carrying the virus as part of the occupational Safety and Health Act. What's called a general duty clause that requires that employers keep the workplaces safe, even if there's not a specific regulation that applies since covid is so relatively new, there aren't any formal regulations that have been adopted yet. And so that's why it falls under the general duty cause OSHA came out with guidelines in january and one of them was you know, either get your employees vaccinated or if they're not vaccinated, then follow the same safety guidelines that they've been following before hip ensures that Into concept employers that employers have to safeguard the health information of employees. It doesn't mean that um an employer cannot um make a rule around um requiring employees to provide medical notes. Um for example to come back to work or show proof of vaccination. This idea that shampoo for vaccination for other employment or admission to school college to get into an establishment is not a new one before. Covid in some place that he had a vaccination if they have a disability or they have a religious belief, they can ask their employer for an accommodation. It might look like moving them to a different department or unit of that employer. So they're not coming into contact with customers or clients, for example, at a hospital, not working directly with patients, that they were going to be at risk. But there may be some jobs that someone just can't be accommodated right. If they're dealing with a vulnerable population and they don't want to give vaccine, then that employer could be within the rights to say, you know what? We need everyone to be vaccinated. And so, uh, we can't accommodate you, especially in health care. But certainly there's a precedent in certain industries. There has been a case in texas where some hospital employees were challenging the vaccine mandate. And then there was a case, I believe it was at indiana University where um people are challenging the vaccine mandate and that's a public institution and the courts still said that they could be mandated to attack the vaccine. Well, if an employee is not vaccinated, um, the question about whether or not to be ostracized from being a full team member and a workplace, It's an interesting one and it's kind of double sided. There's a possibility that you are creating a second class of worker and that they're not fully integrated into the culture of the workplace and not going to team building exercises are happy hours. That's certainly a possibility. And, and that's why I would encourage employers to at least provide another way to ensure safety by maybe have them get tested and showing that there at least uh, three of the back of the, of the, of the virus and maybe wearing a mask so they can still participate as an employee. You still have to toe the line between um ensuring the safety of your workforce, but not ostracizing employees as well, just like any other person with a disability or religious belief that if it conflicts with their job duties and those are essential job duties, then the employer can say, well, I'm sorry you're not qualified for that position. And so they could um terminate that person. Typically a voluntary quit, um, does not enable someone to get unemployment benefits. If that's seen the, there is a voluntary quit or it might be seen as misconduct. Right? So if you engage in some other sort of misconduct at your work, you may not be eligible for unemployment benefits and, and that could be seen as misconduct in a broader sense, every state has different requirements for receiving unemployment, but I could certainly see in some states than saying no, you're not eligible because uh, you engaged in some behavior that made you lose your job